Monthly Archives: September 2012

SUPERMANIA is proud to present the latest works of SuperFan/artist ‘Jayce 76’ featuring more of his stunning retro-style ads/lobby cards (click on images for full-size wallpapers).

Its a welcome return for Jayce who now has his own site with extensive galleries of similar works from cult cinema classics. Aside from their obvious visual appeal, Jayce’ gift is still how he manages to convince his works are genuine but unused vintage promo’s making great use of much of their original typeface/blurbs but adding a unique aesthetic twist (the ‘missile chase’ shot above being a great example).

See more of Jayce’ older wallpapers in previous posts and look out for more in future..!

Today would have been Christopher Reeve’s 60th birthday. In honour of his memory and to celebrate his tenure as the Man Of Steel I present my collection of images signed at various stages by the man himself. From the top – autograph dedicated ‘To Mark’ obtained in-person by a crew member at Pinewood studios during 1978, hand signed index card from the mid-80’s matted with a print from Superman: The Movie, pre-printed card with a shot of Reeve in ’77 (unsure of the origin of this?) and another print taken from BRAVO magazine from 1979.

Part two of the feature taken from UK ‘Photoplay’ Magazine with the impressive gallery (for the time) showcasing a rare pic of Margot Kidder from a seperate photo shoot, (bottom right) in character as Lois Lane in a Superman sweater. Margot would do more of these (with increasing degrees of raunchiness) for use in various publications. Her interview (third pic down) is a curious insight foreshadowing what was to come in later life. Thankfully in true Lois Lane fashion Margot overcame her demons to be the success she is today…

The bumper 80 Page May 1981 issue of the elegantly titled “The New Photoplay – Movies & Video, The Cinema & Home Screen Monthly” was a real treat for Superman fans. Shown above is the cover and part one of the feature devoted to the theatrical release of Superman II in the UK with full page photographs (The main colour portrait revealing itself decades later to be taken from a deleted scene shot by Richard Donner) and reference to a (not particularly insightful) review. Part two of the article to follow with more pics and a candid interview with leading lady Margot Kidder…

In continuation of this revised post charting the history of the aborted fifth and final Superman Movie starring Christopher Reeve, presented below for the first time anywhere is transcript from a Q&A (video above) at the 1994 Atlanta Dixie Trek Convention where the man himself responds to the question; “How true is it that Superman V was in Pre-Production..?”

I don’t know – It was going to be made…In Orlando, Florida at the…Universal had got new studios opening down there. And the good news would’ve been, that Ilya Salkind and Alexander Salkind who had made the first movie and the second movie would be back – they had bought the rights back from Golan-Globus which I think is good news.

But what happened was, they basically, I think started to hire some technical people and were talking to directors…and got a script written but never…came to me…ahead of time. And I had been so bruised by the really…everything about Superman IV, I mean I’m just so apologetic and…what can I tell you folks, you know its really sad that that happened…Superman IV. I think…Superman IV had the potential to be a very good movie but it needed to be told on an epic scale – it need to be big-time movie-making, and it wasn’t. I’ll give you one example of what I mean by big-time movie-making versus not. I had basically worked on the story with Konner and Rosenthal who wrote the script – we planned the story out together and they wrote a screenplay and we talked one time about a scene – and of course – this was 1986 and the Nuclear race was still important and Reagan had failed with Gorbachev at a summit meeting in Geneva, the Nuclear threat was still very much alive, the Russians had been referred to as an evil empire, already if you remember back in those days, and so the idea of Superman getting rid of Nuclear weapons seemed like a reasonable thing to do, after all, Superman had been used in World War II to sell War bonds, y’know, if this is something they didn’t know, you could get in sight with real world, when it needs to be…good…quality.

So, we had envisioned a scene where Superman has decided- after spending time at the Fortress of Solitude- that he will intervene in this arms race, and that he was going to land on 42nd street, on the double yellow line right in the middle of the street and then walk down the street to the United Nations which is the end of the street, on the East river and he was going to give a speech to several nations of the world. And of course people will be pouring out of buildings, and buses and it would be like the Pied Piper, y’know, thousands of people walking down the street, and I had the idea of him walking rather than flying actually from watching Jimmy Carter get out of his motorcade in his inauguration in Washington, I thought it was a very inspiring moment, meeting people.

So, anyway, we had all this and we were really excited about it and to make a long story short, when the moment came in the actual filming of Superman IV, where he talks to the United Nations, it was shot in an industrial park in the British midlands in the rain in November with twenty extras and a few pigeons thrown in for atmosphere. And then they wondered why they can’t make the movies take off. All the thinking was like that to be very honest with you, because Golan-Globus – great deal makers, they went around and bought a lot of stuff, they bought Masters of the Universe, they bought Captain America, they bought this one that one and the other one, thinking, well, you just, y’know, it’s Saturday morning cartoon kiddies stuff, we can just throw it out there and be fine, in my opinion not respecting the audience. Not respecting what the audience…deserves to see, and…they paid a big price for it…So…

This is the thing, truthfully, I would’ve done Superman V, contrary to anything you read in the papers or will read, but I’ll tell you the truth here and now, if they’d showed me – this is back to the Salkinds again a few years ago – if they’d showed me a brilliant script for Superman V, and a commitment that they were gonna spend in today’s dollars the kind of money that was spent for the talent we had on Superman I, I would’ve been the first person to sign up. In the absence of that I thought it’s better to stay home, and that’s really what happened…”

Photos courtesy of Jim Bowers. For More on Reeve’s appearance at Dixie Trek, read the article on Capedwonder.com